I was struck by whimsy and wrote a fic, originally I was gonna write my favorite spies driving through the forest and bonding and fluff but idk what happened 😅
There wasn’t a clock in the room. Finn had never thought about it before, but now that he had noticed it, he just couldn’t stop. Having no windows was understandable, but no clock? A shame. A clock would help. It would prompt the suspects to ponder what their life had come to, as the hours slipped away, and the dullest rookie investigator C.H.R.O.M.E. had at their disposal droned on about integrity and how the agency had their ways of uncovering lies and asinine questions like:
“Where were you on October 1st, from twenty-one-hundred in the evening to oh-eight-hundred?”
Chrysler. Finn closed his eyes so he wouldn’t roll them like a petulant adolescent. The investigator was already agitated, and the last thing Finn needed was another note on his file about hostility and disrespect to authority. “You don’t need to specify ‘in the evening.’”
“What?”
It would have been better to just answer the question. But his tank was starting to rumble. Hunger crept to the front of his mind, siphoning his patience for this interrogation. He wanted something buttery. “The twenty-four hour clock already denotes the time of day. That’s like saying ‘ATM machine.’ But at least that has a nice rhythm to it. ‘Twenty-one-hundred in the evening’ is pretentious, at best.”
The investigator gritted his teeth. “Answer the question. Where were you?”
“I’ve already answered it for three other cars from employee resources.”
“Well, answer it again.”
Finn looked back at the spot he thought a clock would fit in the room. Toward the ceiling, exactly in the middle along the left wall. “I was in my quarters.”
“And where is that?”
“Whitechapel, at the moment.” And he quite liked it. At least it wasn’t under Heathrow’s flight path, like his previous agency-provided flat.
“Can anyone else verify that?”
“Yes.”
“Whom?”
“Agent Shiftwell.”
“Where was she?”
Had they not brought her in for questioning yet? “At my flat.”
“From what times?”
“Eighteen-hundred hours to about midnight.”
“Why?”
Here it comes. “She wanted to watch a film, and I had a slightly larger television.”
“What film?”
“Mean Mini Girls.”
The investigator’s lips flinched for a moment. “What?”
“From 2004. With Lindsay Lohride. It’s one of those teen movies. There’s this clique of minivans—”
“You mean, you were on a date?”
“No. She’s already in a relationship. But she had mentioned the film a few times and wanted me to see—”
“Did you like it?”
No. Holley had been very offended by his (admittedly, very vocal) dislike of it, since it was a foundational part of her childhood or something like that. Perhaps this investigator liked it too. So Finn decided to play it neutral. “I can see why she recommended it.”
The investigator’s eyes swept him again. “Do you know why exactly you’re under investigation?”
“Yes. And I swear, I meant no ill will toward any of the trees… If I had, it would have been much worse.”
——————
C.H.R.O.M.E. had a myriad of repairs, upgrades, and replacements to fund. But someone important had decided the armory needed greenery, so they were digging up the trapezoidal garden in front of the main office and relocating it all to the front of the armory.
Finn had used some of his senior leverage to protest, including emailing his handler about ways he felt the garden budget could be better used. Just his luck that the following day, October 2nd, one of the gardeners found a tree uprooted. Its leaves, just starting to turn red, were scattered all around the area. The tree had stood for about fifty years in that spot; now, it was being shredded by a removal team into smaller planks. No one else had been moved enough to do anything (or at least, state their intent to do something), so Finn was the prime suspect.
After he was released from interrogation – according to the clocks, four hours had passed – Finn went straight to the dining hall. It was almost the end of the midday meal, and most of the appetizing food was gone. So he snagged an oil can and headed to his and Holley’s office.
“Morning, Finn,” Holley greeted him when he entered. A stack of papers as tall as her sat on the floor, but at the moment, her computer was on and humming with energy. She had her own oil can – two, actually. She was listening to music with her radio low, something peppy, and lowered it while she talked to Finn. “Well, afternoon. Where have you been? Did you get pulled over?”
Finn parked at his desk. He sighed more loudly than he intended as he settled down. “I’ve been accused of a crime.”
“Murder?”
“No, of course not. If I did that, I would never get caught.”
She laughed a little, relieved. Then… “Arson?”
“No.”
For some reason, she now looked disappointed. “Tax evasion?”
“Where is this coming from?”
“You know, just… small talk. What were you actually accused of?”
He didn’t believe her, but didn’t press the subject. “Chopping down that tree in the quad.”
“Oh. Well… that’s not so bad.”
“In the grand scheme of things, no. But they’re turning over every proverbial stone. Chrysler, they’re trying harder to find out who chopped down a tree than they would for an AWOL agent in Russia.”
Logically, he knew that trying to find an AWOL agent in Russia was often a waste of resources. It was better that no one looked for them. But sometimes his stubborn, compassionate side that hadn’t been scrubbed out in training wished that they would bend protocol. No matter how many fruitless rescue missions they launched, there would eventually be a success that made every failure worth it. And if their resources were only going to another garden anyway, that only the employees would get to enjoy, instead of something that could actually do some good….
“The only reason they let me go,” he remembered to tell Holley, she’ll like this, “was because I was watching that movie with you at the time. So, they might come asking you to corroborate.”
“Oh! Well, I’ll help anyway I can.”
“Thanks.”
Holley was quiet for a few moments. “Finn?”
“Yes?”
“What day is it?”
“It’s October 3rd.” But since she sounded so uncertain, he got nervous and double-checked. “Why?”
“...You don’t get it?”
“Get what?”
She chuckled. No answer came, and Finn heard the higher notes of her music begin to play again. It occurred to him that maybe he’d never understand Holley, and maybe it was best if he didn’t try to. So he tried to get some work done, but ended up staring out the window and pondering the fragility of life, trees, and leaves.
——————
(It turned out that Holley and Sid had a bet of what serious crime Finn would get reprimanded for first. Holley’s bet was arson; Sid’s was murder. He found out about this because apparently Sid counted “trees chopped down under mysterious circumstances” to fit his bet, and Holley needed further reassurance that Finn had not gone out after she left and attacked some poor tree.)
"My first Halloween costume, eh? I don't know why folks would wanna know that. *shrug* Well, alright. Before I can tell you what I dressed up as, I gotta give ya a bit of context.
When I was two and a half years old, I saw my first magic show at the Dawson County Fair. The magician--Oilven Von Gearschmidt--had a costume that included angel wings, a cape, and a large, metal top hat with eyes. The hat was animatronic, and would talk and participate in Oilven's performance, which was so wacky and over the top that I was instantly a fan. I begged my Ma 'n Granddad to take me to the fair three more times that year just so I could see his shows again. I even made my own version of his outfit from cardboard and other things lying around the garage... including Ma's drapes.
She, uh, wasn't too happy 'bout that.
But my obsession didn't stop there. See, the costume wasn't real. It was just cardboard and scrap. I wanted AUTHENTIC. So I spent the rest of the year learning how to use my Ma's tools so that I could make the best Oilven Von Gearschmidt costume on the planet. I finished just in time for Halloween, and...I spent the entire night performing "magic tricks"--stealing anything that wasn't nailed down--and being very, very, VERY, loud, weird and wacky.
I was forbidden from wearing it again after that. Not just by Ma, but by the whole town.
It was the best night of my life."
--Excerpt from Recollections of the Hudson Hornet Vol. 3, Page 67.
I do not say that out of arrogance or pride, but as a statement of fact: Our body metals are laced with living titanium that can deflect most civilian projectile weapons, we are capable of fast, powered flight, and our on-board weapons are thousands of years more advanced than anything in the civilian world.
We are involved in civilian affairs only insofar as we process flames. To do more so would be to dominate, to crush anything that is not us. We exist apart from others so that they may live in ignorant bliss and not fear. Only once did we ignore this precept, engaging in... mundane matters, and this singular moment left such a mark on history that civilians shudder to discuss it. They call it simply the "Factory Wars." It is a colorful if unhelpful name. Wars typically imply armies, lines, advances and retreats of hundreds, thousands, weapons manufacturing drives. This conflict involved individual angels, each their own weapon, their own army."
--Excerpt from an Interview with A1A77275, Medical Mileage Review, page 12, 1935
There is an addendum to the interview on page 13.
"Angels are not invincible. One angel was actually defeated during the Factory Wars by a civilian militia in Dawsonville, Georgia--or what would become Dawsonville, in any case--and that required an ingenuity born of desperation...and a very, very big tree."
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Never going to get caught up...so Imma just do prompts in whatever order I can.
If you like my WOC headcanon, check out my fanfic Moments in Time
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Doing prompts in whatever order they're calling out to me. Felt like fall, today, and got me looking forward to Halloween.
I've also been itching to draw my angel OC, Aia and her civilian husband, Gus.
"Many of the holidays celebrated by the civilian population are callbacks to holidays celebrated when the Manufacturers ruled the Old World. My favorite of these is Halloween. I adore everything about the holiday: The spooky themes, the delicious treats, the children dressed up as ghosts and feral beasts...but what I love the most...is that I can be myself. That they gawk and marvel rather than flee in terror, and can't help but smile whenever anyone asks me how I made the wings on my costume look so real." --excerpt from the diary of A1A77275, 10/31/1935
Aia is modeled in the likeness of a 1991 Oldsmobile Cutlass Calais Quad 442 and Gus is modeled in the likeness of a 1939 Ford pickup truckcarstober
